What are the real reasons for the proposed merger of Notting Hill Housing and Genesis Housing Association? Why are the 170,000 NHH and Genesis residents worried. Genesis Residents explain:

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Why are these housing associations merging?

So that the merged H.A can borrow more money on the private money markets to
build homes which are out-of-reach for ordinary people. Both housing
associations have lost sight of their original purpose.

In 2016 the National Housing Federation, the HA bosses association, said (1)
that rental income is central for ,“raising private debt in order to
build more homes”. Service charges and ‘management charges’ on
maintenance work for leaseholders and shared owners also increase income and
allow HAs to raise more private debt.

Increasing income (from rents, service charges and management charges on
repairs) and a bigger asset base (our homes) means more loans for out-of-reach
housing. It has very little do with protecting homes or ending the housing
crisis.

In 2016 Genesis funded a report (2) by a ‘think tank’ set up by extremist
conservative MPs which called for the government to give H.As a ‘deal’ – to
build more out-of-reach homes based on increasing H.A debt to 60% debt and
forcing up rents. Part of the deal was also that the H.As could sell
their existing housing. Although lip service was paid to ‘rent caps’, HAs would
be able charge whatever rent they wanted:

“Government would give the housing associations signing up complete
discretion over the use of the social housing grant from housing asset sales
and allow the housing associations to set their own rents for its social
housing tenants.”

Neither HA has been honest with residents about the real reasons for the
merger – or the likely consequences.

What will this mean for our rents and service charges?

We are concerned that there is a long term agenda to raise rents or get
tenants out, to sell properties on.

What is happening is shown by Genesis’ attitude to older ‘secure tenants’.
The rents for these pre-1989 tenancies are currently uncapped. Despite the fact
that all 2,000 of them are retired, or nearing retirement, usually on fixed
savings or pensions, Genesis has been raising their rents by up to 177%.

As Kate Davies said (3) in 2008, “housing associations should be free to
use new social housing, and existing social housing…as they see fit” (our
emphasis). The new Housing and Planning Act 2016 allows H.A.s to end much of
the protection for residents including their rents ( a process sometimes called
‘deregulation’).

In other words the terms of tenancies, including rent, are under attack.
Service and other charges may also go up with the pressure to fund more
building. Neil Hadden said in an interview (4) in 2015 that Genesis was:

“really looking at our asset base and seeing what the value of that is
and how we can get our hands on that value, by changing its tenure, by churning
it, by selling it and using those proceeds to build more homes.”

So there appears to be a serious conflict of interest between the interests
of current residents and the drive to increase the income of Genesis and
Notting Hill’s (and therefore the new merged HA) by any means.

But shouldn’t H.A residents be supporting the construction of more new
homes?

We would support them if they were building good quality, secure, low rent
homes at about £100-£125 per week – which is what is needed in the South East
of the UK as part of the solution to the housing crisis.

But Genesis is building mostly expensive homes to sell (at up to £1 million)
or rent at market/so called ‘affordable’ rents (costing up to £2,750 per
month). Notting Hill is doing the same.With these policies, the new merged HA will deepen the housing crisis, not
help to solve it.

But these new homes are ‘affordable,’aren’t they?

We will be told how the new organisation is going to build ‘affordable
homes’. But the truth recently came out from an unlikely source – a senior
executive in Genesis explaining why Genesis was building out-of-reach homes
(5):

“Many people may argue… that 80% of market rent in London is not
affordable at all. It is a view most people would sympathise with. But while
that may be so, it is not the view of the Government, who have decided that 80%
is affordable.”

So rather than fight for decent government policies by refusing to get
involved in the ‘affordable’ swindle, the executives of both
organisations are falling over themselves to provide out-of-reach homes by
using existing (publicly funded) homes and ever- increasing rents, and charges.

The two HAs then try to con residents and the general public by talking
about constructing ‘affordable homes’ which they know are out-of-reach.

Is the ‘core purpose’ of Genesis and NHH being faithfully carried out?

The publicity states: “the core purpose remains unchanged: to provide
quality homes to low income households across London and beyond.”

This is quite simply untrue. Neil Hadden, the current CEO of Genesis is on
record (6) as saying in 2015 that people without money simply ‘won’t be my
problem’.

And he noted in the same interview (7) that:

“We really think that the [social housing] element has gone and
therefore we should be looking more at a 50/50 split between intermediate
tenures, such as shared ownership and market rent / outright sale.”

Notting Hill’s Kate Davies has been publicly criticised by Steve Hilditch,
who used to be head of policy at Shelter and is a former member of the Notting
Hill Housing board. He said in 2017 (8) that:“[Kate Davies] has led an organisation which deliberately decided not
to provide as many social rented homes as it could have done …Secondly, she was
a leading light in the campaigns and lobbying that seriously challenged the
existence of social housing.”

Although some might find this criticism harsh, we do not think it is
unreasonable to say that both organisations and their current CEOs have
betrayed very clear housing association principles.

Why Genesis and Notting Hill?

Both CEOS are on the extreme end of housing politics. Neil Hadden, the CEO
of Genesis has funded reports (9)from the Policy Exchange set up
by Conservative MPs who are very far from ‘One Nation’ Conservative principles.

Kate Davies, CEO for NHH, wrote a report in 2008 with a similarly
extreme think tank (10) run by Ian Duncan Smith. At the time she said (11),“social housing is not a desirable destination.” Both CEOs support politically extreme views which point to the end of
housing for the community. This seems a very worrying basis for a merger.

Who is the new chair?

Dipash Shah has only just taken up the post of chair of Genesis. He
would become the chair of the new merged housing association.

In 2016 he reportedly earned around £3.5 million (12). It is extremely
worrying that the new chair appears to have no experience of housing, but
appears to have experience of management buyouts of public assets (think of the
combined value of the housing owned by the new merged organisation) and ‘wealth
management’ in tax havens. What will his appointment mean for ordinary
residents?

Dipesh Shah worked for many years with BP and then in 2003-2006 he was Chief
Executive Officer of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).
In 2006 it was reported (13) that he had attempted to lead a management buyout
of UKAEA which was going to hand out nuclear clean-up contracts worth £56
billion.

He is reported to be ‘affiliated’ to 22 companies including solar energy,
water and wealth management. The wealth management is a company called
Canaccord (14) whose website states:

“We offer a broad range of services including discretionary and advisory
portfolio management, stockbroking and independent wealth planning.” The company is generating value for our individual, institutional and
corporate clients through comprehensive investment solutions, brokerage
services and investment banking services. The Company has offices in 10
countries worldwide, including Wealth Management offices located in Canada, the
UK, Guernsey , Jersey, the Isle of Man and Australia.”

Guernsey (15), Jersey (16) and the Isle of Man (17) are widely
regarded as ‘tax havens.’

Will services improve after a merger?

Many residents complain about Genesis’ record when it comes to maintaining
their properties. This, after all, is supposed to be their core job. Both HA’s
say: “As a larger organisation we will have more buying power, which means
we can increase value for money for you, our customers.” But the
evidence is against them on this point:

For example, on 9 June 2016, Inside Housing published an article (18)
which reviewed a report on efficiency:“There was no significant evidence of a clear relationship between
scale of a provider and lower costs”.

On 19 June 2016 Inside Housing
published an article on another piece of research (19)concluded:“There is ‘no clear link’ between the size of a landlord’s repairs
operation and cost savings, according to analysis by Housemark…However, it said
cost variations were affected more by geography than signing large contracts
aimed at creating economies of scale.”

We should not take their word about ‘buying power.’ A merger may well just
mean a bigger, more anonymous organisation ‘lording’ it over residents who are
in a weaker position to defend themselves.

What happens to our contracts and tenancies?

Although we are not lawyers, we think that contracts between
leaseholders/shared owners and the new organisation will be honoured.

However tenancies are definitely under threat. The HA bosses have been
campaigning for what is called ‘de-regulation’ – giving H.A managements more
power over their residents. The Chair of Genesis recently stated (20): “We
have advocated on behalf of less regulation in certain areas.’’ In other
words, less protection for residents – especially tenants.

Both Neil Hadden and Kate Davies have publicly supported removing residents’
legal protections through the process that is often called ‘de-regulation.’ The
merger will probably decrease legal protections for residents.

That is the point of ‘de-regulation’ in the H.A. sector – to give greater
power to Boards and CEOs and take away legal and other regulatory protection
from residents.

Will the 170,000 residents of Genesis and NHH get a choice?

No. Genesis have said that for the merger they “expect to work very
closely with” an unelected ‘regional committee’ that has not even met yet
(all four regional committees were axed only a month ago).

Genesis does not appear to like transparency. No minutes are ever published
of the meetings of the previous regional committee meetings. Residents have only
been allowed to attend as ‘observers’. They do not even have the right to
speak. The terms of reference covering the axed regional committees does,
however, make their powerlessness quite clear. It notes:“For the avoidance of doubt, the… Regional Committees are not part of
the governance structure.”

So Genesis will be ‘working very closely’ with a committee of unelected
residents, meeting in secret, which does not allow residents to speak, and
which has absolutely no power at all.

NHH is as bad. It has provided residents with a questionnaire on its
website. However, this only allows residents to ‘agree’ with the merger. There
is quite simply no ‘tick box’ if you are against the merger.

NHH has organised ‘estate roadshows’. This is a rubber stamping exercise to
pretend they have consulted residents. Questionnaires at the roadshow do not
have an option for residents to say ‘no.’.

They say: “Our staff will be
available to meet you and answer any immediate questions you have about the
proposals and receive your feedback about what the priorities for the newly
merged organisation should be.”( our emphasis)

But it offers no meeting in which residents can have a voice. NHH residents
can’t test the arguments and decisions of NHH managers in open meetings. Let alone
actually say ‘no’ to a merger.

Is ‘bigger’ better for the people of this country?

Is it in our interests to have mammoth housing associations?

Will getting huge make H.A.s more efficient at running things,
getting repairs done or building good quality, low cost housing for the
community?

Will these huge organisations actually solve the housing crisis or make
it worse?

Are they not already far too secretive, out of touch, and out of
control?

Maybe what the people of this country need is accountable, democratic
and local housing organisations for secure homes not mammoth outfits run for
the benefit of power-hungry executives chasing huge salaries and slavishly
following the very poor housing decisions of successive governments?

So this why there is a need for a meeting to create our collective
response to their merger:

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